Chalkbeat--Is the number of teachers of color skyrocketing or stagnating? Here’s what the numbers really say
A recent report offered a surprisingly rosy picture of the state of teacher diversity. The number of teachers of color in public schools, it noted, had more than doubled over the last three decades.
“Our findings are different than the conventional wisdom,” Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the authors of the research, told Chalkbeat. Teacher diversity still doesn’t mirror student diversity, he acknowledged. But “there is sort of an unheralded victory,” he said.
You may be getting whiplash. Isn’t the teaching profession overwhelmingly white? Hasn’t progress been modest, at best?
Here’s what you should know about the demographics of America’s teaching force, and how to make sense of these competing narratives.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/11/29/teachers-of-color-diversity-public-school-trends-data/
Matt Barnum| November 29, 2019
The Atlantic--The Students Suing for a Constitutional Right to Education
A new federal complaint with a unique argument accuses the state of Rhode Island of failing to provide students with the skills they need to participate effectively in a democracy.
Nearly all of the world’s 180-plus countries include the term education in their constitution. Most guarantee every child the right to free education, and many make participation in some form of schooling mandatory; some even provide universal access to affordable college. For the remaining handful, the UN’s decades-old treaty on children’s rights, which stipulates various educational protections, serves as a backup, and has been ratified by pretty much every sovereign nation on the planet. Except for one.
That one country is the United States of America, a nation that prizes the idea that anyone should be able to build a better life through education and hard work.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/lawsuit-constitutional-right-education/576901/
Alia Wong| Nov 28, 2018
Education Week--Redshirting Debate Just Got New Fuel with ADHD Study
One of the biggest debates among parents who have the choice is whether to send their newly-turned 5 year olds to school, or hold them back a year in order for them to gain more maturity before the rigors of kindergarten.
A newly-released study published in the New England Journal of Medicine adds yet another data point to a complicated decision. The researchers found that kindergarten students who had turned 5 in the month before starting kindergarten were more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children who started kindergarten in the month that they turned 6.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2018/11/redshirting_debate_and_ADHD_study.html
Christina Samuels on November 29, 2018 5:28 PM